Tag: peer to peer lending

Good News as Government Promises Heavy Investment in UK Property Development

The UK Government has recently announced plans to invest billions of pounds into the creation of new residential UK property development.

UK Property Finance, one of the UK’s leading Development Finance firms, is understandably excited by the news:

“With the Treasury itself providing serious financial support for those in the property development sector,” they state. “It seems that the disconcerting issue of the lack of affordable housing across the UK is finally being taken seriously by those in power.”

The investment plan is expected to assist in the creation of 225,000 new homes across the country, with at least 15,000 anticipated to be ready and habitable by 2020. There’ll be, it seems, a £3bn injection to the Home Builders’ fund, with a further £2bn going directly to residential property developments on public land.

Insufficient Funds for UK Property Development?

However, despite this news, there are plenty of voices in the property development sector who don’t believe the figures to be sufficient to overcome the extent of the housing crisis.

“Although the amount of suggested investment is significant,” UK Property Finance goes on to say. “It still seems to fall short.”

Whilst these steps by the Government are, of course, a step in the right direction, the extent of development simply does not match the volume of population expansion. This is particularly the case for affordable housing, as increasing numbers of people are priced out of the property purchase market altogether.

Without sufficient Government backing, some affordable financial backing tailored to the needs of each development is necessary.

Enter Property Crowdfunding!

Property crowdfunding and peer-to-peer secured lending may just be the answer. Allowing investors to build a diverse portfolio of property investments across a range of property types, as well as smaller financial input requirements, the alternative finance sector is promising. A more diverse variety of investors, from high net worth to private individuals can get together to fund development projects that will help towards providing some of that much needed new housing stock.

The property crowdfunding and peer-to-peer secured lending market is one of the major players making a significant difference in keeping the property market moving in the UK. It’s this kind of innovation, as well as the perseverance in the face of challenging times, that is key to building a successful future for the UK property market, and the economy at large.

P2P News – All The Latest Updates

Hi guys and welcome to our October P2P news blog round-up. As usual, we’ll be taking a look at the latest goings-on in the P2P world and today we start our round-up and look at the proposed regulations that peer-to-peer lenders would like to see in place to giving you some of our very own P2P tips! Missed our previous round-ups? If so, catch up here.

Peer-To-Peer Lenders Want Tougher Regulations

Peer-to-peer lenders have said there is an “urgent” need for tougher regulation of their own sector to ensure that consumers understand the risks they are exposed to, thus avoiding a future backlash if investments fail to perform. (FT.com, October 2016)

Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA)’s Robert Pettigrew stressed that investors need to realise that peer-to-peer lending products in no shape or form resemble anything equivalent to the guarantees represented by a bank deposit.

The P2PFA mentioned that advertisements from lenders suggesting that peer-to-peer loans were similar to a bank or savings deposit with instant access were “unhelpful”. Eight of the P2PFA members who control a large majority of the UK market are requesting that the regulator sets out stricter guidelines on how loans are marketed to consumers, as well as setting out common standards for declaring bad debts.

Back in February, Lord Adair Turner (who will feature in our third P2P news story) — former chair of the FCA’s predecessor, the Financial Services Authority — told a journalist that, over the next decade, peer-to-peer loans could be the source of losses that “make the worst bankers look like absolute lending geniuses”.

The P2PFA have admitted that they would welcome the development of new rules to “protect not exclude” retail investors, they claim that peer-to-peer lenders have introduced beneficial competition and choice into the investment and borrowing markets respectively.

There has been this fear by some that P2P is confusing in understanding the differences between the concept and also equity crowdfunding.

However, as mentioned in our previous P2P news round-up, the P2PFA stated that there was no evidence to suggest that consumers are currently underestimating the risks associated with peer-to-peer lending as different platforms have adopted a variety of approaches to ensure a high level of consumer understanding. Top industry lenders recommend that investors should require financial advice if they are unsure about the investing process.

Chinese P2P: Loans More Than Doubled in September

Chinese P2P loans more than doubled to a record high at the end of September, despite the on-going challenges that the Chinese authorities face in regulating the exponentially growing sector.According to the official Xinhua news agency, P2P loans surged 153.5 percent to 956 billion yuan ($143 billion).

What’s particularly interesting from the data is that more than a month after China’s banking regulator used aggressive measures to restrain the P2P sector, warning that almost half of the 4,000-odd online lending platforms were seen as problematic.

So how has The Red Dragon been able to sustain P2P growth during problematic times? Many people moving from rural areas have a difficult time getting the loans they need because there is perception that they are not credit-worthy, because of this, there has been a surge in demand for P2P lending products and services. The government has taken steps to clean up the industry after a series of scandals (such as the Ezubao scandal which springs to mind).

Lord Turner Changes His Tune on P2P Lending

As briefly mentioned in the first story, one of the industry’s most well-known critics of peer-to-peer lending, Lord Adair Turner, has changed of his tune, he is now suggesting that the sector could potentially prevent a future credit crunch.

During a recent speech, Lord Turner was complimentary of the industry, he even suggested that online peer-to-peer lenders could perform credit underwriting.

In addition, he predicts that P2P lending could even act as a “spare tyre to the credit system, making credit crunches less likely.”

In contrast, he still stood by his comments that he made back in February about P2P causing losses, but understood that this loss would only make up a small part of the sector.

P2PFA Releases Major Research on Economics of P2P Lending

The P2PFA has released a commissioned study on the economics of the peer to peer lending market in the UK. The independent assessment, provided by the economic consulting firm of Oxera, analysed the risks, costs and benefits of peer-to-peer lending and provided an objective account of how P2P business models work. (Crowdfund Insider, October 2016)

The research primarily focused on the eight-member platforms of the P2PFA – which are known for their high standards of transparency and operation – the P2PFA members comprise over seventy-five per cent of the UK market.

Some key takeaways from the research was that P2P lending has created additional competition and choice in the market for loans and investment, in addition, it provides alternatives for retail investors, opening up access to risk-and-return from an asset class of consumer and business loans with net returns of between 4%-8%.

Moreover, P2P lending does not create systemic risk, and platforms are well-placed to weather a downturn in the credit cycle – borrower defaults would need to increase at least threefold to reduce average interest rates to investors below zero.

It was also revealed that the majority of investors have a good understanding of the associated risks involved.

Basic P2P Tips

To end this month’s round-up, we thought we would share some basic P2P tips to help you on your way to getting started with peer to peer investments.

Our first P2P tip of the day is to diversify – just like with a stock market portfolio diversifying is key, with P2P lending, you should further diversify by spreading investments across multiple platforms. End of the day, the more you diversify, the less likely you’ll be to lose money on your investment.

Our second tip is to do your research. As Francis Bacon once said knowledge is power. Read the reviews on each platform you consider before getting involved. In addition, ask fellow investors of their experiences. It’s worth noting that not all lending platforms are the same, so make sure you’ve researched how they conduct their business and study their procedures for screening borrowers, as well as learning how they deal with late payments and defaults.

Finally, make sure you re-invest! The last thing you want is to have a static investment, DO take advantage of the compounding yields to be gained by continual reinvestment of returns into new loans.

Looking for more tips? It’s a bit of luck we’re a generous bunch at The House Crowd, view our 7 Top Tips for Investing in P2P Lending here.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Which of our chosen P2P stories has interested you the most? We would love to hear from you, feel free to leave us a comment on our Facebook and Google Plus pages. If you prefer to tweet us, tweet @TheHouseCrowd.

In the meantime if you want to know more about Property Crowdfunding do register for our Information Pack which will tell you all about it.

If you like data, you’ll love it. But if you’d prefer something a bit more readable, you’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve put together our own guide to the state of the alternative finance industry, keeping the emphasis squarely on Real Estate Alternative Finance, of course.

Things have changed since NESTA published its report, ‘The Rise of Future Finance’ in 2013. At that time, the alternative finance industry was worth £939m. In 2015, NESTA reported its value at £3.2bn. The market is on course to surpass the £5bn mark in 2016.

It’s not just financially that the alternative finance sector has grown. It has evolved taxonomically, too.

In the 2013 report, NESTA identified a range of distinct funding models operating in the sector. Two years later, 28% of alternative finance platforms surveyed reported that they were operating a ‘mixed’ or ‘other’ business model, which does not fit into the existing taxonomy.

The 2013 report has no mention whatsoever of the terms ‘real estate’ or ‘housing’. And yet, by 2015, NESTA’s report segments data on Real Estate Alternative Finance into its own category, such is the proportion of the industry it covers.

In 2015, Real Estate and Housing was the most popular sector for the alternative finance market.

Real Estate and Housing

Technology

Manufacturing and Engineering

Food and Drink

Retail and Wholesale

Leisure and Hospitality

Community and Social Enterprise

Finance

Construction

Education and Research

Combined debt and equity-based funding for Real Estate Alternative Finance amounted to nearly £700m in 2015, with P2P business lending in Real Estate (for mortgages and property development) taking the lion’s share: £609m – 41% of the total volume of P2P business loans in 2015.

The market volume of equity-based crowdfunding is much more modest, coming in at £87m for 2015, still a very significant sum.

Perhaps some of this extraordinary success has something to do with institutional funding in the P2P Real Estate lending sector? Institutional funding was around 25% in 2015, and up to 75% on some platforms.

P2P business lending for Real Estate comprises a range of financing models and products. There are the short term bridging finance loans, which run for a 12 to 18 month period. Them, there are the longer term (3-5 years) commercial and residential mortgages, and construction/development debt finance.

In 2015, the average size of P2P loans for Real Estate came in at £522,333, slightly under 2014’s £662,425 average. The figure for 2015 was more in line with the average UK house price than the previous year. This may be due to the growing use of P2P lending in funding residential and commercial mortgages, rather than the larger developments focused on in 2014.

Just a quick clarification point here: regulatory constraints mean you cannot use P2P Real Estate lending for your own residential mortgage.

It’s also not a done deal to apply for a loan for a Real Estate development: in 2015, 27.5% of loan applications in P2P Real Estate lending were accepted.

The average number of lenders required to fund a typical P2P Real Estate loan? 490.

Equity-Based Crowdfunding for Real Estate

This model enables investors to acquire ownership of a property asset, via the purchase of shares, either of a single property, or a number of properties as part of a portfolio.

In 2015, equity-based crowdfunding for Real Estate raised a total of £87m, for 174 development projects. This is how the annual quarters looked:

Q1 → £13.09m

Q2 → £23.16m

Q3 → £35.70m

Q4 → £14.63m

Equity-based crowdfunding for Real Estate had a great year in 2015. The record for fastest funding for a development project was set: £843,100 was raised in just 10 minutes and 43 seconds, from a total of 319 investors!

Unlike P2P Real Estate lending, with equity-based crowdfunding, there is scarcely any institutional involvement. Of the 10,626 funders participating in Real Estate crowdfunding, NESTA found that only 3% were categorised as institutional investors by the platform. This contrasts with the 77% of sophisticated or high net worth investors in the model.

Yes, equity based crowdfunded property investment is much more grass roots in many ways than the P2P Real Estate sector. The recent inclination to lower minimum investment thresholds in this area, with the aim of enticing more retail investors attests to this in a very clear way.

Whilst 27.5% of loan applications in P2P Real Estate lending were accepted in 2015, in equity-based crowdfunding for Real Estate, platform acceptance rate was much lower. Only 2.9% of deals made it onto the platform, on average.

However, deal success rate for those who did make it onto the platform was pretty high: 87%. There are also far fewer investors required for an equity deal – NESTA reports an average of 150 per deal. The average deal size for 2015 in the crowdfunding sector for property was fairly high, too: £820,042.

Real Estate Alternative Finance and Manchester

Of the 58 alternative finance platforms surveyed by NESTA for their report, 62% were – unsurprisingly – London-based. However, a significant 5.2% hailed from our home city of Manchester.

Manchester is also one of a number of regional and local authorities that have either partnered with online alternative finance platforms to fund local SMEs, or have used alternative finance methods to fund community projects.

NESTA’s data shows that the most active regions receiving funds from Real Estate crowdfunding were London (of course), the North East, and the North West. The North West was also found to be one of the top 3 regions actually providing funds.

This isn’t terribly surprising given the growing trend for emphasising Real Estate crowdfunding within areas in need of regeneration. Manchester has, as we know, come a very long way. The economy of the North West has been transformed over the last few years, in no small part due to the heavy investment in regeneration projects, in the form of development funding from both the public and private sectors.

It is these regeneration areas that are being identified as some of the potentially best investment opportunities. Not only do they cost investors less than prime locations, but these areas are also the ones that will experience the highest growth over coming years.

Real Estate Alternative Finance and The Government

Direct investment from the government has helped support the growth of both peer-to-peer and crowdfunding markets. In 2015, £60m was lent by the British Business Bank via P2P lending platforms, specifically for SMEs.

Tax incentives have also been applied, including the EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme) and SEIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme). These schemes have been widely used, by a large proportion of investors using alternative funding platforms, and have been especially popular within the equity-based crowdfunding market.

The launch of the IFISA (Innovative Finance ISA) in April 2016 is also an exciting development in the alternative finance sector.

In particular, P2P business lending platforms for Real Estate expect the IFISA to generate a whopping 51.9% growth in transactional volume this year, whilst equity-based crowdfunding platforms for Real Estate predict 30.31% growth as a result of the IFISA.

The figures for Real Estate Alternative Finance outmatch those elsewhere in the alternative finance market. P2P consumer lenders, for example, expect a 26% increase in total volume as a result of the IFISA. It’s clear that Real Estate lending stands to benefit the most.

In anticipation of the influx of retail investors expected by the onset of the IFISA, some P2P Real Estate lending platforms are even lowering their investment thresholds.

What is the IFISA?

At its most basic, the Innovative Finance ISA allows UK investors to lend money using P2P lending platforms to invest up to 100% of their £15,240 annual ISA allowance, and to receive any interest and capital gains tax-free. You can find out more here.

Institutional Investment in Real Estate Alternative Finance

Catching the scent of a good thing, institutional investors are also muscling in on the peer-to-peer real estate lending market, as they are across the alternative finance industry.

It is estimated, based on platform reporting, that in the UK in 2015, 1,031 institutional funders were at the bottom of financing loans and equity deals in alternative finance.

45% of all alternative finance platforms reported institutional involvement in 2015. In 2014, this was 28%, and in 2013, just 11%.

For P2P business lending, in 2015 26% of total funding was attributable to institutional funding. In peer-to-peer Real Estate lending specifically, a total of 25% institutional funding was reported, with significant increase between the 3rd and 4th quarters of the year, in particular:

Q1 → 22%

Q2 → 22%

Q3 → 23%

Q4 → 31%

By contrast, however, in equity-based crowdfunding, 2015 saw just 8% of funding coming from institutions.

With institutional funding growing in the alternative finance market, as well as the influx of more high net worth investors, there is some discussion about whether the disruptive force of the alternative finance market is at risk of being stemmed.

Banking institutions have found themselves burdened with heavy regulatory compliance, cumbersome legacy systems and bureaucratic complexity. Since the debacle at the end of the last decade, the general populous has been hungry for new alternatives to the traditional financial system. Confidence has been lost, and – at the retail end of the investment spectrum at least – making one’s savings grow within the received systems has less potential for gains than what’s promised by alternative finance.

Alternative finance has become a key player in the development of a whole new generation of financial products. Along with a range of other FinTech solutions to saving, banking and investment, this revolutionary rumble has got the banks concerned.

It’s no wonder that, as such a disruptive movement grows, it finds itself on the precipice of being co-opted into the corporate world. But all the time that interest rates on savings accounts remain shockingly low, and first-time buyers view getting on the property ladder as likely as a winning Euromillions ticket, the prospect of a less suffocating alternative for growing money will continue to be thoroughly desirable.

And, focusing on Real Estate specifically, research conducted by Crowdstacker found that 44% of retail investors would like to increase their exposure to the UK property market, not only owning their own home, but also by investing through P2P lenders, like The House Crowd. Investor reluctance was found to centre around the time consuming nature and costs of property management, as well as affordability. The alternative finance model of crowdfunded property investment and P2P lending in Real Estate removes those factors from the equation.

2015 also saw the emergence of self-managed, platform-owned listed investment trusts, funds and vehicles: a sure sign that platforms are preparing to challenge the fund management space.

And as the alternative finance world continues to evolve, we are also seeing the emergence of a number of independent online aggregators, such as Informed Funding, FinPoint and ABF. These are rising up to provide additional channels and services for connecting business fundraisers to alternative finance platforms.

That being said, corporate interjection into the alternative finance space should not be considered a negative. It is this involvement that is allowing the industry to grow and evolve.

A number of P2P consumer lending platforms have struck high profile partnership deals with some big-name corporates.

Corporate partnerships have been witnessed between alternative finance platforms and large brands such as Virgin, Amazon, Uber and Sage. As NESTA puts it, these partnerships are “fusing the traditional corporate world with the disruptive models of alternative finance”.

It is these partnerships that will aid in increasing public awareness of the alternative finance sector, but not only this. Corporate partnerships will also attract high quality borrowers, reducing default rates on P2P loans, and also offers the potential for data gathering, which will enhance the industry’s credit scoring capabilities, and inform risk management.

The increasing involvement of high net worth investors, along with institutional funding and corporate partnerships is what is allowing alternative finance to push boundaries, blur definitions, and limit the dangers of orthodoxy: it is a catalyst for rapid evolution.

Conclusion

The extraordinary growth of the industry that we have witnessed over the last few years has begun to level out.

In 2015, the UK’s alternative finance industry facilitated investments, loans and donations totalling £3.2bn. In 2014, this figure was £1.74bn – a YoY growth rate of 83.91%, which is not to be sniffed at. But when you compare this to the 161% growth between 2013 and 2014, it looks positively small.

In 2014, 24 new alternative finance platforms began trading. This was down to 14 in 2015. Fewer new entrants are joining the market, whilst existing platforms continue to increase their total volumes at a steady rate.

Up until now, the industry appears to have been actively pushing its boundaries, both in its evolution, and in its rate of growth. Whilst the figures continue to be staggeringly impressive – with the market on course for a £5bn year in 2016 – plateauing figures are a good sign that the industry is maturing.

Alternative finance is coming of age with intelligence and dignity. It is listening to influential voices from big corporates, accepting helping hands where they are offered, and maintaining its grass roots persona. Most of all, however, it’s making money, not just for a few, but for a large body of investors all along the wealth spectrum. In Real Estate, it’s helping to regenerate run-down neighbourhoods, keeping a stagnant housing market moving, improving living standards across the board.

In short, alternative finance may have been a disruptive teenager, but it’s growing up to be a real force for good in the middle of a blighted financial landscape. The future of finance is looking promising.

P2P News – All The Latest Updates

Hi guys and welcome to our very first P2P news blog, just like our property and crowdfunding news blogs we will be giving you a quick snapshot featuring five top stories. Today we look at an array of interesting topics from UK lenders say P2P is safe to looking at some key takeaways from the industry so far.

P2P is ‘Safe’, Say UK Lenders

UK P2P lenders have reassured investors that they are safe despite the calls for tighter regulations.

The P2P industry — in a nutshell involves matching borrowers directly with lenders online — was thrown into the spotlight last week when a high-profile US lender’s chief executive resigned.

As a result UK lenders were keen to distance themselves from the P2P company and also pointed out that regulations involving lenders in the UK differs from the regulations for their U.S. counterparts.

The big difference between the UK and The U.S. is that the UK regulations were written specifically for P2P lenders. In contrast, U.S. lenders follow rules devised before peer-to-peer lending existed as FT’s Aime Williams points out in her article (link below).

P2P in the UK is also known for being very transparent, the industry body for UK p2p lenders, the P2PFA, noted that its members publish their loan books.

In addition P2PFA members follow a number of agreements to enhance transparency levels, including publishing bad debt rates and five years of credit performance, as well as a returns performance and submitting full loan books.

However, some have mentioned that things should go further. For example, Chief executive of AltFi Data,Rupert Taylor told the FT : “People recognise the benefits of transparency, but there’s more that can be done.”

China : The Red Dragon Reins in P2P Lending

China is tightening its grip on a surge of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending amid a string of mismanagement and fraud in the lightly regulated sector. (The Straits Times, May, 2016)

The point of doing this is to limit the potential instability these lenders might pose to the country’s wider economy and society.

In recent years there has been a surge in P2P lenders in China, mainly from websites that connect borrowers to lenders and according to Chinese data company Wind Information, there were 2,600 platforms at the end of last year.

Lending hit over 980 billion yuan last year, soaring from 253 billion yuan in 2014, making China’s P2P market the largest in the world.

Lendix Raises $13.5 million To Become Leading European P2P Platform

The French startup has raised $13.5 million (€12 million) and now wants to become one of the leading European P2P lending platforms.

Lendixwas launched last year and in it’s first year has managed €20 million worth of medium-term business loans. According to Tech Crunch, Lendix manages loans for small and medium companies for 3 to 6 years with annual returns between 4 and 9 percent for the lenders.

Lendix is going to expand to other European countries now they have taken the French market by storm, they plan to get involved with the Spanish and Italian markets respectively in the coming months. For each European expansion, the French startup has to work on getting a license to operate on these new markets. In addition, Rules can be slightly different as well. It’s a long and bureaucratic process, however, it is a good barrier to entry for foreign competitors.

Why Banks Should Be Offering More P2P & Bitcoin Services For SMEs

Banks are facing “stiff competition” from fintechs, and should be offering more “value-added products”, such as peer-to-peer lending, bitcoin and cloud services according to Accenture’s SME Banking 2020 report.

They found there is a clear appetite among many SMEs for these value-added services and this currently represents a missed opportunity. Their data indicated that banks could be generating £1.6bn a year more in revenue from these services, representing potentially £8.5bn by 2020.

Gareth Wilson, Accenture banking practice lead for the UK and Ireland told City A.M. : “SMEs want banks to be more relevant and provide a wider range of business services”.

Moreover, he stressed that banks need to recognise and seize this opportunity. Unless they do, SMEs may take their business elsewhere and look for alternatives.

P2P Takeaways

Lastly, here are some key P2P takeaways :

The P2P lending industry is seeing significant growth, especially in developed countries with strong financial markets. P2P lenders in the US generated $6.6 billion in loans last year, up 128%.

Europe is the next big market for P2P lending: The alternative finance market in Europe reached nearly €3 billion ($3.9 billion) in 2014, a 144% jump, and small-business P2P loan volume in France grew almost 4,000% last year, to reach €8.2 million ($10.6 million).

The US has one of the largest P2P lending markets in the world by loan volume, but the UK’s is 72% larger on a per capita basis. Low consumer confidence in banks (even before the financial crisis), a high degree of comfort with online platforms, and a positive regulatory environment have all helped nurture the UK’s P2P lending market.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Which of our chosen P2P stories has interested you the most? We would love to hear from you, feel free to leave us a comment on our Facebook and Google Plus pages. If you prefer to tweet us, tweet @TheHouseCrowd.

In the meantime if you want to know more about Property Crowdfunding do register for our Information Pack which will tell you all about it.

With peer-to-peer lending, individuals provide unsecured loans to those in need of finance, rather than saving their money in a bank or building society. Though quite a recent phenomenon in the UK, peer-to-peer lending is predicted to continue to grow rapidly, especially as the reputations of our high street banks continue to be damaged by seemingly unremitting revelations of malpractice.

Peer-to-peer lending websites, such as Zopa, Yes-secure and Ratesetter have already achieved significant success, with more than Â£200m estimated to have been lent through Zopa since its inception in 2005.

Whilst peer-to-peer lending has the benefit of cutting out money-grabbing middlemen, the risk of reintermediation is becoming an increasingly likely problem. As peer-to-peer lending companies grow, their marketing, regulatory and operational costs increase, which could potentially cause companies such as Zopa, Yes-secure and Ratesetter to lose the benefits which currently sets them apart from traditional banks.

Despite recent Government support, only time will tell whether peer-to-peer lending will become a norm of borrowing and lending in the UK. Here at The House Crowd, we support the practice of peer-to-peer lending, but would remind those lending their funds that with us you can get a very good return on your money and need do nothing at all!

The House Crowd is a brand new concept in property investment which allows people to invest small amounts via crowdfunding (for more information on the process, visit www.http://thehousecrowd.com/thehousecrowd//how-it-works/). We are committed to breathing life into empty, rundown properties whilst giving investors great returns on their investments (for more information about us, visit www.http://thehousecrowd.com/thehousecrowd//about/our-manifesto/). If youâ€™ve read enough and want to invest now, visit www.http://thehousecrowd.com/thehousecrowd//invest-in-property/).

As weâ€™ve previously stated, the term, â€˜crowdfundingâ€™ is currently all over the media, and as the Telegraphâ€™s own Monty Munford, rightly observed in his article this week, â€˜Crowdfunding really is hotâ€™ and he couldnâ€™t be closer to the truth!

According to www.crowdfunding.org there will be more than 530 crowdfunding services by the end of 2012, up 60 per cent on 2011 with 44 in the UK alone. Founded in the States, crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has quickly been heralded the bees knees of crowdfunding, and has been a huge success. Simply put, if a company needs to raise money for a project then investors can use this service to back them by pledging money, from small to large amounts.

As a property investment group based on the crowdfunding model, we are great supporters of the crowdfunding movement and we hope more and more companies take advantage of the growing number of crowdfunding services available today – cutting out the traditional money men and instead raising money via peer-to-peer lending, what could be better! In an environment where it is becoming harder and harder to borrow money from the banks, which are nowadays not particularly serving the people they were created to assist, crowdfunding can only grow from strength to strength.

The House Crowd is a brand new concept in property investment which allows people to invest small amounts via crowdfunding (for more information on the process, visit http://thehousecrowd.com/thehousecrowd/how-it-works/). We are committed to breathing life into empty, rundown properties whilst giving investors great returns on their investments (for more information about us, visit http://thehousecrowd.com/thehousecrowd/about/our-manifesto/). If youâ€™ve read enough and want to invest now, visit http://thehousecrowd.com/thehousecrowd/invest-in-property/).

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In respect of Equity Investments, The House Crowd Limited (FRN 711355) is an appointed representative of Prosper Capital LLP (FRN 453007) ("Prosper"). Prosper is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Neither the House Crowd Limited, Prosper nor any of their affiliates or group companies provides any advice or recommendations in relation to this website. If you have any doubt about the suitability of any investment marketed by The House Crowd Limited, or you require financial advice, you should seek a personal recommendation from an appropriately qualified financial advisor that does give advice.

In respect of Peer to Peer investments, The House Crowd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under interim permission number 665205 to conduct peer to peer lending activity in the UK.

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